Armor
by Fred-104
Summary: A young marine on the frontlines of battle gets his first encounter with the armor-clad super soldiers of the UNSC: Spartan-IIs. Further chapters will possibly come from Tony/other friends POV. I do not own anything from Halo. Rated T because K sounds childish.
1. Chapter 1

"Everybody down!" The ranking NCO yelled as another Wraith projectile sped toward the UNSC soldiers trying to hold the city limits from the Covenant attack. A few marines ran from the roiling plasma dropped toward them, but the explosion caught and killed two of the three men running from it. "Open fire!" The sergeant yelled and the twenty or so marines came up from cover to fire at the approaching infantry. Private First Class Chris Jensen fired until his magazine came up empty and reached for an extra clip but realized he had just fired his last one. He looked to his friend, Tony Docks and asked for an extra clip. "Heck if I've got a clip for ya. Go look for some on a couple of the dead guys. They won't mind." Chris shuddered, he'd never stolen from the dead and though this technically wasn't the same, it felt wrong. He scrambled over to one of the bodies littered around the area and took any magazines he found from him. He tried to make it back over to Tony to give him some of the extra clips he'd scavenged, but before he could do so Chris felt a three fingered hand yank him off of the ground. He saw the energy blade of the elite, and knew he was dead. He called out to Tony and tried to tell him that they were behind the line, but saw the marines all around retreating. _So they busted our defenses. Great._ He thought to himself. He noticed Tony trying to get a clear shot at the elite about to kill him, but knew that with the flying bodies and explosions that his friend wouldn't get a single shot off before he was already dead. That's why he was so surprised that the elite let go of him, dropped him to the ground. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees to his assault rifle, knowing he would be dead before he got to it, but he made it and spun onto his back with the weapon in his hands, aiming at the armored alien he was sure was behind him, but instead he saw a tank of green metal yanking a combat knife from the elite's neck and dropping the enemy soldier to the ground. He was somewhat terrified of the hulk and he tried to get away from it, but it moved past him and-to his surprise- shouted, "Stand your ground! Hold the line!" As he looked in awe at the metal monster before him, Chris was startled by the appearance of a second one, which pulled him to his feet, handed him his fallen assault rifle, and ran to battle. Tony came up to him and checked him over, saying "You okay Chris?" Chris nodded and pointed to the behemoth suits of armor fighting the Covenant forces.

"What the heck are they?" With a grin Tony clasped Chris's shoulder. "They're SPARTANs. One-man armies, and we got two of 'em. Heck, we might win this battle after all!" With that both soldiers charged forward and fought the attacking forces with new vigor.

_**Author's Note: This is my first attempt at publicizing fan fiction, and all constructive criticism is welcome.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Chris was doubled over, vomiting. He had been out on patrol with Butch when a giant ape-like thing-some of the others were calling them ?ruteshad appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Butch around the neck. Chris had brought his rifle to bare on the brute, but his friend was already gone by the time he'd been able to do so. With a scream, Butch was torn in half and his legs were thrown at Chris.

They knocked him over and he was too stunned to move for a moment, terrified by the huge creature before him. It started to step toward him, but one of the Spartans jumped from out of nowhere and landed on the brute's upper body, bringing the hulk down with it. With its bare fists the Spartan landed blow after blow on the neck of the hairy monster until it stopped flailing and died. Some of the marines followed the Spartan, and they fought off the enemy attack.

Tony had eventually come back from the battle and-with the help of Joe (he had met Joe the day after the Spartans came, and they'd been fast friends.) and Todd(they'd met soon after Joe, and Todd had taken a little more time to accept his friendship, but they were good friends now)-helped him up. Then Chris began to be sick. Sometime later, the four marines walked back to camp and Joe and Todd made a few jokes about Chris's weak stomach, which even the target of the well-minded joke had to laugh at. They were walking when Chris accidentally ran into the Spartan.

The Spartan turned in a flash and had its fist back and ready to strike at Chris. It slowly lowered its fist and said,

"Watch where you're going leatherneck." Joe and Tony looked as though they were going to defend Chris, but with a silent hand signal from Todd they backed down. Todd stepped forward and said,

"I'm sorry sir. My friend's just a little...out of it right now. It won't happen again." The behemoth suit of armor-Chris still had a hard time believing a true human was inside-didn't even look at Todd when it said,

"I don't care what you have to say, I was talking to the one that ran into me." It continued looking at Chris, as though it could kill him just by using its polarized face plate. Tony, Joe, and Todd stood in a line in front of Chris, making some sort of barrier between him and the terrifying-far more than any Covenant he'd been confronted by, other than maybe the brute-hunk of metal in front of him. Tony said,

"As the soldier told you, sir, he's just a little off. He's new to battle, and just needs a few days to get the hang of things. It won't happen again." The tank continued to look at the quartet of marines until the Spartan behind him placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked at the hand, then walked away without a word to the marines.

As the men walked toward the mess hall, Joe commented, "I never really thought Spartans would be such...uh, maybe I shouldn't practice my French in front of the kid," he threw an arm around Chris's shoulders, "But you guys know what I mean." Todd and Tony nodded.

Tony threw his arm around Chris's other shoulder.

"Chris, it's a good thing you've got us here. That guy could've ripped you to pieces with his pinky finger." Chris paled, then after a moment said,

"They're putting genders in those things now? Technology is amazing these days." The marines laughed at Chris's small joke and continued to the mess.


	3. Chapter 3

Chris wandered aimlessly through camp. Tony and Joe were on watch duty, Todd was checking over logbooks and the sergeant. It'd been two days since his last run-in with the SPARTAN pair, and he didn't want any more...incidences. He walked along the outer edge of the base camp, then moved farther in. There were currently 63 marines in the camp according to the last check Todd had made, and the camp stretched across the Eastern edge of a city. Chris didn't know the city's name, only that it had already been evacuated. He didn't even really know why they were protecting it, but it wasn't his job to know. That bothered him.

Walking along the inner edge of the city, Chris saw several buildings with deep burn marks and tried not to think about the people who once lived there. He stood, staring, for a moment before he noticed that someone else had walked up next to him.

"Makes you sick, doesn't it?" The female marine asked him. Not waiting for an answer, she continued, "I lost my entire squad during the evacuation. They're all still in there somewhere."

"Yeah, there are only two of us left." Chris responded after a while. "We joined up with some boys from another team, but we've still only got four of us."

Chris eventually looked over to see that the woman he was talking to was a Corporal named Archard. She glanced at him for a moment and then they both began to move away from the spot.

"Take care of yourself, Jensen." Archard called over her shoulder.

"Yeah." Chris called, returning the farewell.

He made his way back to the barracks where he found Todd still working on his datapad.

"Come on man. It can't take that long to find out we're out of ammo." Chris said as he punched Todd in the shoulder lightly.

"It's not just ammo we're out of." Todd answered unhappily. Chris remained silent while he thought of the ramifications of that statement.

"Well, aren't you two just little rays of sunshine?" Joe asked. He ducked under the tent flap and entered followed by Tony.

"It makes me sad just looking at you." Tony added. Joe quickly got out his deck of cards and the three marines entered into a game. Chris didn't really know how to play, but - despite his protests - Joe and Tony kept cheating for him so he'd win once in a while. Todd finished his report and sent it to the sergeant, then declined an offer to join the others in their game and laid down to sleep.

Chris fell asleep staring at his cards, and Joe dragged him to his bunk where he slept for the rest of the night.

_**Author's Note: Hey guys! What's it been...two years? Oh. I'm sorry. I was looking through my stuff and thought, 'Hey! I haven't worked on that in a while' and wrote something out. This is a little more serious than they have been, but it will get back to plain silliness soon. Also, what do you think of the sort of 'family' thing that this is turning into(Joe and Tony being older brothers, Todd being the smart middle, etc.)? Do you like it? Do you dislike it? Leave me a review and tell me! Reviews are love!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note: So, I've had this one written for a while. I've just been trying to tweak it. But, here it is!**_

Three days later, Chris, Tony, Joe, and Todd were part of an eight-man team moving through the city. The sergeant major had heard a report that there were soldiers somewhere inside the limits of the city, and had sent out four teams immediately. The four of them had been inducted into a staff sergeant's unit for the duration of the search. Quickly, the team had split into two groups and fanned out farther in.

Joe held up a closed fist and the three others stopped immediately. Chris crouched lower and lifted his rifle, ready for an enemy to come charging around the corner. Tony moved back until he was the rear of the unit as Joe moved forward to scout around the corner. Joe poked his head around the corner before moving around. They heard a loud bang and a cry from Joe, and the team rushed to the corner before flattening themselves against the wall. Chris took a deep breath before spinning around the corner and raising his rifle to his shoulder.

Joe motioned for him to drop his rifle. Moving back to the others, Joe whispered,

"I kicked something. It hurt. Thanks for being so worried." He flashed them all an annoying grin before moving back to his position on point. The team moved as stealthily into the city as they could, pausing periodically to check in with the other half of the squad, and soon reach the border the squad leader had given them.

"Sir, we're at the edge. We haven't seen a single thing in here." Todd reported. Tony cautiously led the others out onto the main road and they began checking in the larger shops. They all suddenly heard the pounding of running feet and scattered on both sides of the street, finding what cover they could. A marine ran out from a side alley ahead of them, and they all tracked her with their rifles briefly before deeming her a friendly.

She moved up to them at a slower rate before approaching Joe, who had moved out to meet her.

"Hey there, Beautiful." He said with a grin. She rolled her eyes and said,

"My groups found some Army boys. There are a few wounded with them and we'd appreciate your help." Joe nodded and looked at Todd.

"Call it in." He ordered, then followed the woman back to her group.

When they reached the others, Chris noticed that the marines had another woman and two men assisting six Army troopers, three of which were wounded. Tony moved forward and took one of their arms over his shoulder and began helping him back toward the base camp. Todd jogged to catch up with the others. Todd and Joe moved ahead with the woman who had found them, and Chris and they other woman fell back. The army troopers and two other marines helped Tony move the wounded soldiers.

Chris looked at the woman he was walking level with and recognized her as Corporal Archard. She looked at him and briefly nodded. The large unit moved forward in silence, moving steadily toward the camp. Chris began to relax as he realized they were nearing their goal, until he heard a quick whining sound. Ahead of him, an army man spun in half a circle before hitting the ground.

The two men next to him turned and fired immediately, and Tony began yelling orders. Chris saw a shining blue orb loft toward him. A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of the trajectory of the plasma grenade and toward one of the side alleys. Looking back, Chris saw all of the men and women clearing the streets and moving down the alleys before his attention was jerked back to himself as he was continuously pulled along. Looking ahead of him, he saw Archard tugging on him until he started to move behind her. They continued running until Archard seemed sure that they were no longer being followed. They continued at a slower pace while Chris spun around to cover their backs.


End file.
